Jesus and the Arts of Resistance

“What Jesus was doing is located exactly on the boarderline between the covert and overt arts of resistance. It was, of course, not as open as the acts of protesters, prophets, bandits, or messiahs. But it was more open than playing dumb, imagining revenge, or simply recalling Mosaic or Davidic ideals. His eating and healing were, in theory and practice, the precise borderline between private and public, covert and overt, secret and open resistance. But it was no less surely resistance for all that.”